Petition to include all 2013 purchases for free DLC

[nascarlaser1]

I don't think squad should have to change any due date for any reason.

also,

18 minutes ago, The Space Dino said:

Although Kerbal donuts I would happily not accept, as you never know what the green stuff on top is.

Bill: "hey bob, have you seen Jeb lately?"

Bob: "I last saw him making donuts"

oops....

Edited June 6, 2017 by nascarlaser1

[Scoundrel]

As a long time veteran and survivor of the two huge forum blowups and the Great Derp, I think this thread is cute.

For those that are curious about KSP history, here's the response on the issue at the time:

http://kerbaldevteam.tumblr.com/post/47730955705/expansions-dlc-and-the-future-of-ksp

Unfortunately the forum link to HarvesteR's original thread is dead since the moderators moved it to the archives (this was all after the Great Forum Derp of '13, so I know it's still around), and was considered by most to be Squad's first huge PR blunder, which many also thought would be their last. Unfortunately all it did was foreshadow the Great Community Meltdown of '13... a PR disaster that started when Cap'n Skunky deleted Frostiken's rant thread on the 5th of June (I still have the PM between me and Frostiken), and subsequently bungled the response when they underestimated the community displeasure at how things were being handled, a lack of dev transparency, and at Squad in general. The resulting fallout ultimately led to Skunky eventually getting the boot... which was too bad, he was a nice guy and I liked him, and though he lacked solid crisis management skills, he was great when things were going good.

Ahhh, the good ol' days. Back when we got 5 quarters to the dollar... the devs posted on the forums daily... the explosions were bigger... we could get to the mun just using the navball and the horizon as our guide... and rockets were steam powered, as I recall. Anyways, enough strolling down memory launchpad crawler-way lane.

The point I am trying to make is that I do not believe that Squad should ignore this thread and allow it to fester. They need to craft a diplomatic response ASAP demonstrating the context and history of the offer, and why April 2013 was the deadline, and put this whole thing to bed.

Because it really shouldn't fall to people like me to have to point this out.

[razark]

6 minutes ago, Scoundrel said:

They need to craft a diplomatic response ASAP demonstrating the context and history of the offer, and why April 2013 was the deadline, and put this whole thing to bed.

They did.  Deddly linked it twice on the first page of this thread.

Some people are just going to complain anyway, no matter what Squad does.

[monstah]

2 hours ago, Ignath said:

Besides, IIRC the whole "free DLC" stuff came out of an MIS-STATEMENT (or perhaps better defined as a very loosely worded statement) on the forums by a dev at the time in 2013 stating that all future content would be free.  At the time, I believe the dev was referring to version updates (this was back in the Wild West days of Early Access, where some people were worried about having to PURCHASE the product UPDATES) but his statement was misconstrued/mistaken to be referring to DLC.  Once that happened, the feces hit the fan so to speak and they (SQUAD) ended up offering DLC free as well to quell the forum uprising that was occurring.  (Please someone correct if I'm mis-remembering this whole thing, I never went back to re-read the thread).

That's also how I remember it, yes.

[razark]

47 minutes ago, monstah said:

That's also how I remember it, yes.

I remember it slightly differently:

Squad had the line about "all future updates for free" in their EULA.  Then someone (HarvesteR?) mentioned on the forum that Squad might consider the possibility of making DLC/expansions at some point in the future.  That caused the backlash that led to Squad's goodwill gesture to their customers (and potential customers who bought by the end of that month).

In the end,  it boils down to the same thing, but the problematic statement was in the EULA, not on the forums.

 

Edit:
Here's the post that kicked the anthill: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/developerarticles.html/about-dlc-and-expansions-for-ksp-r44/

Edited June 6, 2017 by razark

[steuben]

I'm in the no camp. It sucks they drew the line where they did. But, domus eorum,  nugas eorum, praecepta eorum. Yeah my latin is rusty.

So we have three options.

1. we can take our ball. Stomp off, and go home.

2. we can get our engineers make combustible lemons... that seems suitably kerbalish

3. we can live with it.

[Ignath]

54 minutes ago, razark said:

I remember it slightly differently:

Squad had the line about "all future updates for free" in their EULA.  Then someone (HarvesteR?) mentioned on the forum that Squad might consider the possibility of making DLC/expansions at some point in the future.  That caused the backlash that led to Squad's goodwill gesture to their customers (and potential customers who bought by the end of that month).

In the end,  it boils down to the same thing, but the problematic statement was in the EULA, not on the forums.

 

Edit:
Here's the post that kicked the anthill: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/developerarticles.html/about-dlc-and-expansions-for-ksp-r44/

Thanks for the correction.  In the end, the whole bruhaha started due to misunderstandings of the terms "all future UPDATES for free" and what that means.  

Personally, I think that SQUAD was pretty generous giving out what they did, considering DLC or Expansion Packs have nothing to do with an iterative development process that continually pushes out "future updates".

[magico13]

No. This whole thing started with a misunderstanding of some text and some words by some devs, so they clarified their stance and chose to do the nice thing and make any future DLC free for everyone who was currently playing, have a grace period in the future where people could still buy and get things free, and a hard date in the future where the new rules would take place. They could have just said "Nope, we actually meant that everyone has to pay for DLC but regular updates are free" and ended it with that and then nobody would get it free. They did a nice thing that they didn't need to, gave plenty of warning, and anyone asking them to extend it is just being selfish. You bought it with the acceptance of the terms as written, live with it.

This is coming from someone who bought it in June of 2013 at full price (at the time about $22 I think) when it went on sale a week later, thereby missing the free DLC cutoff AND a chance to save a bit more by waiting a week.

[regex]

8 minutes ago, Ignath said:

Personally, I think that SQUAD was pretty generous giving out what they did, considering DLC or Expansion Packs have nothing to do with an iterative development process that continually pushes out "future updates".

Yeah, that's an understatement. How someone could conclude that "update" meant the same thing as "expansion" or "DLC" is beyond me. Glad I wasn't around on the forums during that time.

[HebaruSan]

2 hours ago, Scoundrel said:

The point I am trying to make is that I do not believe that Squad should ignore this thread and allow it to fester. They need to craft a diplomatic response ASAP demonstrating the context and history of the offer, and why April 2013 was the deadline, and put this whole thing to bed.

Because it really shouldn't fall to people like me to have to point this out.

Nah, it makes sense for the forums to self-manage to some extent. SQUAD shouldn't have to constantly re-post and re-link statements they've previously made when those statements ("April 2013") would be a distraction from where they want to focus attention ("KSP Making History!"). This poll has been running about 90% No since it started, and the context and history has been given adequately enough in the comments (frankly, probably better than the current official community relations crew would do). I see no signs of festering.

[Markrc93]

2 hours ago, razark said:

They did.  Deddly linked it twice on the first page of this thread.

Some people are just going to complain anyway, no matter what Squad does.

100%. The compounding problem here is "the bar" I think. There's a decent amount of people who want to try and act like Squad isn't a company that has to make profits and exists in this utter bubble separate from all game making entities.

We don't have DRM (where we have to be connected to an online server in order to play a single player game), we don't have "supporter ranks" (where you can/could buy privileges, like shelling out $100 to have a Kerbal named after you), we don't have invasive analytics programs that quietly harvest our personal information like email, gaming habits, and more, we don't have microtransactions, we don't have to pay for updates, we don't have entire parts of the game stuck behind a paywall (that being said, I think EVERYONE would be upset if the DLC was basic game features, like if they made us pay for bug fixes, ala games like Asura's Wrath where they put the ending to the story in DLC), we don't have to pay a monthly subscription fee for a game we've already purchased, we don't have version locking, we don't have bans on modding the game, we don't have platform locking (like at least one game that was Xbox 360 and Xbox 1 that obsolesced its online play *cough cough*), we don't have blatant pandering (we never get some social commentary in the game like Rust's "randomized player body features"), we're not being marketed some "season  pass", we're not being marketed an "ultimate edition" and so many more things.

All of these things are actual things that occur at the hands of other developers and publishers. KSP has been around for nearly 6 years now, and we're waiting on the FIRST DLC/expansion to come out.

I mean, Kerbal Space Program is the first game they've ever published, and yet they've gotten so much right that I even now had to check if they published any other games because I still have a hard time believing they don't have a bigger experience record. Sure they haven't been able to give us updates like some publishers can swing, and sure their contests don't yield huge prizes, and probably a few other things where big AAA publishers do things that Squad can't. We've had our forum debacles sure, but in the whole I feel Squad to be one of the most ethical in terms of how it treats the consumer when compared to other publishers out there. Even among indie publishers, Squad racks up at being better than most in my personal opinion with how they treat the consumer.

I don't support the idea presented in this thread of extending at all, much less all of 2013, the reasoning has been better put more eloquently by others in the thread and I don't see myself adding anything constructive there. I love KSP and I love Squad, they may have their faults, but it's still miles beyond many others.

Edited June 6, 2017 by Markrc93
Removed unnecessary spacing

[Kerbart]

48 minutes ago, regex said:

Yeah, that's an understatement. How someone could conclude that "update" meant the same thing as "expansion" or "DLC" is beyond me. Glad I wasn't around on the forums during that time.

To be honest, and I'm paraphrasing from memory here, I think it was originally stated along the lines of "we will not charge your for anything, ever" or something along those lines. I'm pretty sure about this, because it seemed incredibly short-sighted to make such a statement, and I worried that KSP development would stop at one point, as the only source of income was "new sales" and that will, eventually, dry up.

At least they had the foresight to correct this. Paid DLC is perfectly understandable and a far more pallatable option in regards to keeping KSP development funded than charging for bug fixes or applying a subscription model.

[MR L A]

22 hours ago, CjStaal said:

I'm not purchasing anything anymore. This is all false goodwill that's screwing the people who supported them when they needed it. Plus after people buy DLC then they'll push more and add microtransactions. "100 Maneuver nodes for just 39.99!"

How on earth is this "false goodwill"? They decided a LONG time before the announcement of the DLC who would be getting DLC and who wouldn't and when the cut-off period was.

[Galileo]

I find a feeling of entitlement to be the general attitude of society these days. This whole "change the rules and stipulations for me because I matter and I'm special" is practically commonplace now. This is apparent in the OP's Poll, having an option to only extend to August 2013 to squeeze them in. "To hell with anybody else as long as I'm taken care of." It's childish and selfish. 

Edited June 6, 2017 by Dman979
Edited to remove references to deleted information

[LoSBoL]

21 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

Furthermore, I missed the Steam sale, so Roverdude should come out and wash my car.

Jeeze, I'm so glad that I invested in an laptop with a waterproof keyboard and full glass touchscreen....

That's the second time that I have to rinse it down because of coffee spewing all over it from laughing

 

Note to myself, don't drink coffee when reading forums 

[HebaruSan]

1 minute ago, LoSBoL said:

That's the second time that I have to rinse it down because of coffee spewing all over it from laughing

Yeah, I guess that was pretty frivolous of me, when what I really need is my lawn mowed. I hope Wednesdays work for RoverDude.

[Dman979]

Ok, guys, this is getting a bit too personal here. Thread locked to give people time to calm down, and to clean up some personal attacks.

[Warsoul]

dim. 2013-03-17, 07:34

Thank you for your order at Kerbal Space Program Store.

Order Details:
Order ID: XXXXXXX
Product: Kerbal Space Program (23 USD, 1 copy)
Amount: 23 USD
Download Link: Login to KSP Store and visit your Profile Page.

Please keep this email as a reference to your purchase.
If you have any questions, you can visit our FAQ page, use our contact page.

Happy Launchings!!
KSP Store.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thats mean i have Free DLC ? If i buyed the game 3 times ?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sincerly; Squad need money if they want to develop KSP 2 or good DLCs. They can't give freebies for life to everyone or the majority.

Sincerly; i'm sad to had no clue that KSP was on Kickstarter. I miss it ! I had no clue of that game until an European give me the hint. That game was totally under the radar here in Canada.

Edited June 6, 2017 by Warsoul

[jhousen]

in a word...no, just...no

Squad set the cutoff date when they did, and that is that.   changing it now would have bad consequences.

 

Edited June 6, 2017 by jhousen
too blunt in the first version

[DrLicor]

I don't think this is the right way to make your point.
I has be discussed quite a lot, a conclusion has been made and I don't think people who began playing a few months to late are getting lucky by getting it after all. 
You have to draw the line somewhere. Also, If you're a real fanatic KSP player, how much cents do you pay for you KSP per hour?

[Superfluous J]

43 minutes ago, DrLicor said:

I don't think this is the right way to make your point.

*Looks at poll*

You can say that again!

[StupidAndy]

what I'm wondering is why anyone voted yes...

[Vanamonde]

This thread was closed for a while as we did some clean up. Please do not make the discussions personal. 

[Dizzle]

27 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

This thread was closed for a while as we did some clean up. Please do not make the discussions personal. 

This is all your fault.

[linuxgurugamer]

2 hours ago, StupidAndy said:

what I'm wondering is why anyone voted yes...

That's easy.  Some people feel entitled.